Five Christmas Times for Jonathan Sullivan-Queen
by legendarytobes
Summary: Companion story to "Five Milestones for Jonathan Sullivan-Queen," and it's based on the premise that Jonathan is a Chlark child from a forgotten champagne fueled night in Fortune. This story starts Clois and Chlollie mentions but ends firmly Chlark and Dinah Lance/Oliver Queen. It's just looks at Jonathan growing up as both a Queen and eventually on Kent Farm at Christmas time.


**I. First**

"I don't know what to get him," Clark moaned and Chloe wondered if he realized he'd thrown himself down on to the sofa with all the flourish of a thirteen year old girl in a snit. "It's hopeless."

"Ollie? Get him arrows. He loves that and he mows through them on patrol," she replied sitting down in one of the chaise lounges in the salon.

It still threw her that she lived at a real, honest-to-god manor. She'd seen Bruce's before, and seen the fake Luthor abomination before it had burned, been there more times than she'd wanted to. But she, Chloe Sullivan, literally lived in an English style manor that had multiple wings and staff and horses. It was insane for a girl who'd spent years bumming the fold-out from her cousin. It should have hit her earlier but, even when she'd been in Star City, she'd always been commuting back and forth to Metropolis. Fighting back the Crisis had landed her in her native city basically for almost a year, but then she'd come after Jonathan's birth. She'd spent the last thirteen months on an estate with staff and horses and a greenhouse...and she was bored to tears.

Chloe wanted to give Jonathan a bit more time with her, maybe even three or four, before she went back to her real work. Sure, soon she'd be back at _The Register_, after nursing, but getting back to consulting and patrolling too, being in the League again, that was what she really wanted.

"No, I know what I got Ollie. You're right. Get him arrows, and he's covered."

She smirked at her best friend. "Well it's like you and ties. You leave all your stuff everywhere when you change. I've got you covered for life."

Clark rolled his eyes and she wondered if he realized he'd picked that habit up from her years ago. "You did not get me ties."

"Well if it's 365 ties, doesn't it count as a great gift? Like I said, strip teases add up, Clark."

"It is _not_ like that," he objected. "I just meant that Jonathan. What can I get him that Ollie can't?"

Chloe frowned. "He's thirteen months old. For his birthday last month, you and Oliver did the present-off thing too. You got him the world's most impractical present but only because I knew Ollie was going to try buying him a Ferrari."

Clark stroked his chin. "That would be a cool present. A diamond is nice."

"It's the size of the damn Hope and now it's in our vault and just no. You don't have to show you love him by getting him cooler gifts than Ollie."

"I do, though. Ollie gets to see him every day and I can only breeze in and be the 'cool' uncle when I am not in a crisis situation or on a deadline."

She laughed. "Glad you like seeing me too there."

"You know what I mean," he replied, sitting up. "I love you too, Chlo, but we already know each other."

"Uh-huh."

"I could get busy and not make enough time for him and then he's seven and I'm just that guy his mom knows!"

"You'd never be that," she replied, smiling back at him.

His vexation aside, Clark was amazing and there was nothing about him she wouldn't impart to her son, when she could. Chloe had meant it when Clark was made the godfather. Sometimes that meant you showed up for christening and wrote a check at high school graduation. That was like with her and her godfather, Gordon. Of course, her dad never spoke to her so why would her uncle? But she and Clark would never be like that. Truth be told, some days he was around even more than Oliver. Superman was busy and up-and-coming basement reporter Clark Kent worked long hours, but there was hardly a weekend that went by where he or he and Lois both weren't over. Hell, he made a point to tuck Jonathan in at least one to two times a week. Sometimes, okay often, Oliver went straight from Queen Industries to patrol and Chloe understood. Star City wasn't Gotham but someone had to protect it too.

Just no.

Clark and her son would never be strangers or just polite relatives at communion. It wasn't in her nature or his to stay away like that, even with a thousand miles between them.

"But you outlawed certain gifts even if it's not hard to make a diamond or you said it was 'too dangerous' to take an infant flying."

"You can't."

"I wouldn't drop him."

"Of course you wouldn't but, no. Get him some building blocks or a teddy bear. He's going to like the wrapping paper better, you know he is."

"But Ollie can get a mink teddy bear from FAO Schwartz!"

"Well it's good to have a bond with his dad too and you know what Jonathan's namesake would say. It's not the price tag that matters. You would never disappoint him. Besides, he says about four words and mostly drools watching _Dora the Explorer_."

"I want to be his favorite."

She blinked and just barely kept herself from saying, of course he would be. He was hers in a way, wasn't he? Still the friend she relied on more than anyone. She never worried about Oliver coming home with Supes to watch his back. But that didn't sound right to say out loud, too intimate somehow.

"His dad's his favorite. He lights up when Ollie comes home or whenever he shows him the toy bows, the ones with the suction cup arrows he can't shoot even now. You'll be his favorite uncle."

"Yeah but I want-" Clark sat up straight so fast he blurred. He hadn't slipped like that around her in years.

"What?" she prodded, not sure she'd almost caught him saying something else.

"Just I have to think of something great, that's all," he stopped then and quirked his head. She knew that look; Chloe called him his "Shelby" look. He heard something.

"Clark, go."

"It's a fire in New York and-"

"I know and it's okay. When isn't it?"

"I will get him something, I promise."

"I thought you'd miss it," she said, pulling her shawl tighter over her shoulders. It got drafty even in rich manors, who knew. "There was that bombing in Sri Lanka and I just thought you wouldn't make it. Lois brought your tiger. It's adorable."

Clark nodded and she waited for him to face her, to stop staring over the crib at Jonathan. More than once, Tess had asked her what the Hell she'd been thinking. She knew Oliver's jealousy streak as well as Chloe was starting to. Maybe Lois or some of her other League friends thought that way. Clark didn't. He would never question a gift like that. But Tess was still a Luthor in her virtual heart, and she spoke the truth. Chloe liked that about the new Watchtower. The answer was because she felt she had to, that something deep inside of her let her know it was right.

More than Robert, even.

If Clark couldn't...well, she wanted him to have a family too.

It was always weird seeing him in the cape. She'd seen it first thanks to the Fate helmet, but she never got used to it. The duster or the leather jacket were one thing, but the full uniform reminded her of Warrior Angel and it was beyond her friend from the loft, the one shorter than she'd been. It amazed her but, oddly, felt wrong in her home.

"I know," he answered, finally looking up at her. "I brought something else but I wanted to give it to both of you. I guess Ollie's asleep."

"It is three a.m. and he still tries to patrol even on Holidays."

"Don't we all? Was Lois mad?"

"She wasn't. We get it. It's what we do. Hell, one day Jonathan will be older and I'll join his dad sometimes. It's what we are."

"Yeah, true," Clark said and his voice was far away, fuzzy. "Just so she's not."

"Has she been before?"

He shook his head and the cape rippled behind him. "No, not really."

"Oh, but Jonathan liked his tiger. He can't sleep with it, too furry, but he chews on it all night so that's a big round of applause for it."

Clark beamed at her, a smile she'd not seen since his father had died, and she knew then no matter how Tess prodded, her decision had been the best, done what she hoped it could. "Great."

"But there's something else, a reason you're in his room at three?"

He handed her a small frame, and she frowned down at it but read the letter inside. "I, Clark Kent, promise to always be there for Jonathan Sullivan-Queen and the entire Queen family as long as I live. If you ever need me, just ask." Chloe finished and hugged him, the frame still in her right hand. "Thank you."

Of all people, she knew what a gift that was, that Clark would always look after Jonathan and his family and, if Cassandra Carver and Dr. Fate were right, all legions of progeny for centuries to come.

"Of course, I said I could get something better than Ollie."

**II. Secrets and Celebrations**

"Free week of babysitting, huh?" Chloe said eyeing him suspiciously.

Clark nodded. "Mom and Lois are going to help."

Chloe laughed long and hard. "Lois raised me sometimes. Her idea of baby sitting cold spaghettios and cable."

"Well she's better with Conner."

"Conner is basically twenty-one and comes over for pizza."

"Mom's there. You trust mom with kids. You could get a lot of nannies, but you don't so you're afraid to really leave him. But you know I can stop anything in half a second and Lois means well and Mom's great at everything."

"So I need a voucher for a whole week, huh?" she asked, sitting with him out in the sun room.

Jonathan was doing one last shopping errand with Oliver. Since he and Lois had to be in Guam for dinner on Christmas day with the General, he and Chloe agreed to exchange early. For Jonathan, he'd actually gotten a few science-themed toys, including a visible man and a chemistry set, things that Chloe could monitor that could get Jonathan thinking. He knew Chlo. Someone with that intelligence but no obvious and safe outlet for it could do a ton of damage, even at almost six.

Still, he'd hoped her to be more enthusiastic about the offer. He knew she wouldn't, but he'd hoped against tradition she'd let her walls down just a little.

"It's okay, Chlo, don't do that thing."

"What thing?"

"The blowing it off thing," he replied, squeezing her shoulder, careful as always not to hurt her. "You and Oliver haven't been talking or getting along well since your powers came back. I can't afford to really send you to Paris or something-"

She rolled her eyes. "Been there, done that."

Clark swallowed and there was a knot in his chest that didn't make much sense so he pushed it away. "I just if you need a week off, both of you, from the League and apocalypses and everything to just talk it out, be together, then Lois and I can do the best to keep Jonathan happy and safe. Family matters most and you have yours; I'd do anything to help you keep it."

She sighed and leaned against him, her head tucking up under his chin as it always had. "And it means a lot, what you gave him the first year...If I ever end up like my mom-"

"You _won't_."

"If I did, you'd always look after him."

He sighed and squeezed her close to him. "You won't because I'll keep it from happening. And I'll be here for all three of you, because you're my family. I know Ollie and I had our ups and downs and I was an asshole that year you first ran Watchtower."

"We both sucked," she said, her voice quiet.

"Yeah but Red K or not I threatened you, and I don't mind keeping an eye out on you and yours for a millennium to make up for it. Immortality should be good for something, right?"

Chloe started to shake and he didn't say anything, just held her and stroked her back. She didn't sob or cry out, but she shook for a long time before she finally could speak again. "Do you think that's me too? Now that I can heal again, do you think I'll age or a decade from now we'll realize I'm like you too?"

"You're not Kryptonian," he replied. "I don't even get why having a kid would bring it back eventually."

"I don't know why a Brainiac coma shorted it out. I just...maybe I can watch after Jonathan too and I won't be alone. _You_ won't be. If it's in a thousand years, then it can be us and J'onn and Diana."

"She's not as fun as you."

She nodded and sat up a bit, and Clark remembered that the way he'd been holding her would have pissed Ollie off and made Lois snarky. It wasn't like that. They were best friends and sometimes she needed comfort and he'd give it. That was it, even if some days he just wished...

...Okay so if he were honest, he wished Jonathan was his and he'd realized about Chloe faster. She'd given him so many chances but he could be the best uncle ever and godfather if that's all he had left to him. It was an honor, a painful one, but one he bore gladly.

"Ollie doesn't want me patrolling. I'd already been fighting about going back and now that I can really make a difference and save lives-"

"Die for eighteen hours at a time?"

"That's just Kryptonians," she blew off.

Clark turned and glared down at her, wishing just once she'd listen to him. "Don't expect me to argue your side. You heal people and you die or are in a damn morgue drawer. You can't do that to Jonathan."

"I got better at it. It really is when it's you, when it takes so much energy that it just drains me. It didn't even hurt to heal Jimmy that one time. I just...I love Jonathan but my life is more than even him and _The Register_. I can patrol, I can help and now I can heal. If there's a huge war or an invasion, how can I sit it out and not save J'onn or A.C. or you? If I could have done this for Bart..."

"...then you might be dead and not him and, as much as I liked Bart, it'd kill me if it were you. Oliver would be even worse, I've seen it. Don't leave us."

"See and then Ollie and I have a standoff. He wants me to stay here and be a typical housewife, even been hinting I should scale back _Register_ work and that Tess can handle everything."

"She could."

"I've been a fight against something since I was fourteen, even if I didn't know I was sending you out to stop mutants, not exactly. You get that's important to me."

Clark sighed and stroked her cheek and he knew he'd never do this with Bruce or even Diana, not like this. "Chloe, you have three men who love you." He didn't even care how that sounded. "Well, if you count Jonathan, so maybe two and a half, and a cousin who'd never move on without you. I want you back in the League doing what you can, but don't die for it."

"Maybe I can't and this is a stupid debate," she said, standing and shoving the homemade coupon in her pocket. "Thanks, we'll go to Monte Carlo, see if we can rekindle something. I...maybe getting married so fast, everything with just sticking with the champagne was a mistake."

"He loves you."

"Maybe he doesn't know me well enough to love me," Chloe said, turning back to the mansion before he could ask for more.

**III. Schism**

Oliver blinked. He barely understood what he was seeing at his door on Christmas night. It had to be his imagination that it was his son and Conner Kent at the door. Jonathan hadn't returned his calls or his e-mails in over a year. Frankly, after he'd found out via a panicked call from Chloe whose Jonathan really was, he hadn't thought much about him.. Before that, Jonathan had made a show of how much he'd hated him by shattering all his bows-thirteen years of gifts-and completely ignoring him. After all, Jonathan had always gravitated toward Clark and why wouldn't he?

You couldn't compete with Superman.

Christ, Clark had taken Jonathan flying the first time when the kid was only five. No bow and arrows set, nothing money could buy would top that. Oliver hated Clark for that, for many things. Hated Chloe more for letting him in. Hell, maybe she remembered what Zatanna's champagne had wrought. Maybe he'd been cuckholded all along.

Yeah, exactly, no one could blame him and Dinah for falling in love...for their little Connor. Not when there was only room in Clark and Chloe's orbits for each other.

So that's why he had to be imaging Jonathan on his door step, Clark's son in every way possible down to DNA (or close enough) standing at his door with a teddy bear clutched to his chest.

"Jonathan?"

His...not not his, never again. _Clark's_ son nodded. "I...Dad, I was an ass about some things. I can't speed but Conner brought me because I asked. Mom and I talked after dinner and she said I could."

He nodded and let Jonathan pass. Conner sped off but not before mentioning all Jonathan had to do was text. They made their way to his main office and sat around his desk, Oliver at the head of it and Jonathan across from him. The Queen crest framed between them and Oliver was aware of that, oh-so-aware that who he thought was his first born, heir to all of this, was anything but.

"You haven't spoken to me in a year."

"Fifteen months," Jonathan said. "I was so mad and then it wasn't worth it...after I found out about what I am, well, it was too weird. Let's be honest, you stopped really being there for me by the time I was ten. I don't even care anymore."

"Because Clark's better."

"Because I like my family now," Jonathan corrected. "Mom smiles all the time; she laughs. Toward the end, all you ever did with each other was scream. You're happier right?"

"Yes."

"And maybe Connor will grow into an archer. I was never any good at it."

"At shooting?"

"At everything, at being a 'Queen.' Maybe we always should have known," he added, biting his lip and with those limpid green eyes, it was so easy to see Chloe staring back at him. "I'm sorry I was so awful."

"I don't understand."

Jonathan sighed and handed him the fluffy teddy bear. It had spectacles and a tuxedo on, something completely ridiculous and Ollie had no idea where he got it from. "It's for Connor. I...turns out we're not related."

"There's not much sorrow in that."

'Maybe some day, but you hurt me and Mom both so hard. Now, this is what I can do. It's a gift for him. I want to be a brother for him too. I know what it's like to be here, to go to Excelsior, to find all the hiding places at the manor. I just want him to know our relationship isn't changing just because I did. He can't help anything more than I can."

Oliver frowned and set the bear on his desk. "I don't follow."

"Mom and Clark...they made me because someone drugged them. They didn't know." Oliver snorted and wished he hadn't. Jonathan's eyes glowed red and Ollie was pushing his chair back immediately. So that's what he had gotten in the deal so far. "I see how it is."

"Do you?"

"You're scared of Clark, aren't you? You're not obvious about it like Lex Luthor or Bruce, but you're scared of Conner and Clark all the same, of what they can do. What I could if I ever do more than see really well and, uh, that heat vision thing."

Oliver had seen Clark use it with laser precision to do surgery or explode something with heat rivaling a nuclear bomb. It wasn't a minor ability to have, not by a long shot. He wondered if Jonathan really understood that.

"I'm cautious about him, about the crazy his planet keeps bringing even now. Don't be naive about you got drafted into."

"Do you think that I'm that different now?" Jonathan asked and Oliver flashed back to the south of France nine years ago and Chloe asking the same question with her palms alight. "Do you hate me?"

"I hate you had a fit and ruined my presents to you, that you just stonewalled me for years. Maybe I was a shit father and Connor's my redo, my chance to get it right, okay?"

Oliver hoped Jonathan wouldn't press. He'd started the League, found Bart and Victor and others whose abilities could help him for Justice. Still, powers made him leery. Clark's made him the most scared and, yeah, he could admit that meant Jonathan too, especially when he stared back at him with still amber-colored eyes.

"Cool, uh, Dad. I just...maybe we can't ever get back to normal for us, but Connor's just a baby and he'll always have a big brother. Please give him the bear and let Dinah know. I can't get here without a plane or Clark or Conner helping, but I'll visit. For Christmas for Mom and for Connor, I need to try, okay?"

"So visiting me and actually talking is Chloe's present?"

"Uh, that and I'm helping repaint my ceiling...it's a long story so please don't ask."

Oliver blinked. Lois had said once that the heat vision was hormonal, he'd just never believed it. Dear Christ, what the Hell was Clark? What was his son now?

"I guess I won't," he said, standing and shaking Jonathan's hand. "It means a lot, son, thank you."

"Hope it works," he replied, his tone as pessimistic as Ollie had ever heard it.

**IV. Wishing and Hoping**

"Grandma Martha, I don't understand how me agreeing to help learn the gingerbread house making secrets of the Kent Family is a good enough gift for you. I was thinking bath lotion or maybe a flower bouquet?" Jonathan asked, scratching at the flower on his nose.

She smiled and eyed the boy in front of her. Martha'd loved him as hard as any grandmother ever had a grandson she still only thought he was Chloe's and Clark's godson as well. She'd gone through the aches and pains with him from his run-in with chicken pox and oatmeal baths, from him learning to write and showing him his first "article" for his blog at eight. Now that he was Clark's and they knew, that he'd gotten the heat vision and senses.

Heck, now that the strength was surging through him, she loved him more than she could say.

That seeing her boy there, towering over her but not quite Clark's height, with his shoulders broad but with Chloe's mischievous eyes, well she couldn't be more proud. The sandy blonde hair that fell in his eyes, well, that and his affection for flannel made her feel Jonathan was almost back. That he'd be as proud of their grandson too.

"Because, I wanted to teach the culinary secrets of our family to you, and this is part of that step. Your father...uh..._Clark_ and I used to make them all the time."

"I know. It's a good thing Clark can cook and bake or else we'd starve. Mom never really learned and we had staff, so..."

Martha nodded and wished that Jonathan felt he could talk about Clark like a father. While he visited Connor, now almost three, about once a month with the other Conner's help and speed, Jonathan barely spoke with Oliver, kept him at a distance with emails and sometimes a few words exchanged while visiting his step-brother. Still, Clark insisted that he could still be "Clark" and so far Jonathan had treated him as such.

That much broke Martha's heart. After all her son had wished and hoped for a family for him, after he delight with the marriage and relationship blooming with him and Chloe (about time), she still wished to hear that one last step: for Clark to be "father" to him the way she already was Jonathan's "grandmother."

"Yes. You'll be at college next year and you need to maybe be better about the strength, honey."

Jonathan rolled his eyes and jutted his chin out in a motion that was pure Chloe Sullivan. He didn't say anything but Martha winced when he took a cutting knife and made blood well up on his palm. She knew what would come next so she wasn't worried for her grandson physically but, emotionally, this made her so sad to see. Just as she'd seen before over the last few months, his palm glowed rose and then gold and, as she watched, the flesh knitted itself back together. After running water over it, Jonathan's skin was as unblemished as before he'd done it.

"Maybe I should wait. I can always get in and defer a year. How do I stay inconspicuous when I glow? I can't get the right mix of anything! If I was just Kryptonite resistant and had better sense or even strength, okay. But I _can _get hurt. Clark can't be exploded by a nuke but I get a paper cut and I'm a light show!"

He was breathing heavily now and this Martha knew well too, not just his grandfather's stubborness and easy frustration, but also Clark's fear over his own abilities, his own paranoia and self-loathing. She sighed and handed Jonathan a rounded ball of gingerbread.

"Sit at the table and just roll it for a while. You need to relax."

"The heat vision or strength," he said, sitting down and rolling the ball from one hand to another. "I concentrate, can hone it. I can't stop something involuntary. What I do...someone will notice it some day, grandma."

Scared wide eyes bore into those. Had it been almost forty years of this? Of big, innocent green eyes begging her for help and protection? It had flown by so fast.

"I'll protect you, always, like I did repealing the VRA for Clark, like your mother did saving the league from the Department of Domestic Security single-handed. You really think anyone could take Fawkes and Superman's son and live to tell about it?"

"No, but I hate it. Sometimes, I hate me and it's not even the alien stuff, well, maybe the damn heat vision. Most of the time, I like Mom and Clark and I'm proud to be like them, but then I'll stub my thumb and glow while fixing the tractor or almost start a fire seeing a movie preview and I get so scared," he set the ball aside and balled his hands at his side. "Don't tell them that. They'll blame themselves, and they didn't ask to be what they are anymore than I did."

She nodded. In a lot of ways, she'd been naive to bring Clark home. She'd assumed there would have been 'special needs;' how could she not. Martha had never seen death and interplanetary intrigue and now a grandson as scared and isolated in his own way as Clark had once been. Maybe she'd been selfish with him. Maybe...

But they were all here now and it wasn't just Clark's powers bothering him.

"The three of you are amazing and what you do is moreso. Your parents have saved so many people and, maybe, if you truly want to, you will too."

"I do! How can I be Supes's kid and not help? Even Conner does too and he isn't even Kryptonite-resistant like I am."

"He's also immune to bullets and can fly, honey. You never have to feel you have to be anything-journalist or superhero-I know Clark and Chloe come on strong."

"I think Mom was reading brochures from Columbia and UNC in the womb. It's Chloe Sullivan, and failure is not an option."

"If you wanted to be anything and were happy, she'd be happy too, I promise."

Jonathan sighed and started rolling the ball against the table's surface with both hands. "I just wish I didn't attract attention. My powers aren't all bad, but I don't like feeling any random thing could cause people to know that I'm not like them. I want control."

She nodded and sat down, taking his hands in hers. They already swamped her and she wondered where everything had gone, when even her grandson had become a man. "You don't have any. For all your gifts and Clark's, you can only react like anyone else. All that strength and you have to wait and hope like any mortal. It's for the best. Jor-El is terrible."

"I know."

"But it's right about one thing-you're not gods." She punctuated that by kissing his cheek. "So we get back to work. We cook it because arranging is the important thing."

"Because icing and tricking it out, I know."

She smiled sadly back at him. "I started this with your fa...with Clark when he was new to the farm. I thought it would help him with his strength. If you learn to handle gingerbread, then everything else won't even be difficult."

"I broke all my furniture and still go through glasses so fast, grandma."

"We'll get it."

"But if we don't."

She shook her head and squeezed his shoulder. "We don't have a choice and I've hidden two Kryptonians expertly so far with Conner and Clark. I'll fix you up too."

Jonathan laughed but didn't hug her after he stood. She understood why. "I love you."

"Me too son, now get baking. That gingerbread won't make itself."

**V. The One**

Jonathan sat down on the sofa and shook his head. His father bought the farm back the same year Connor had been born, clusterfuck that was. He wasn't sure how he'd secured and almost identical gingham sofa but, even though it was the year 2036, there was a 1980s aesthetic to everything if not older in some parts, everything kept as Grandma Martha liked and his great grandparents had clearly insisted. The farmhouse just didn't change and, to be fair, the people who lived inside it couldn't on the outside either.

Not really.

It was with his mind swirling with melancholy that his parents found him. Jonathan always smiled to see them, no matter how long everything had been official. It seemed it had taken too long for them to be a real family. Sometimes he and Oliver went out together for a beer, sat and talked things over. It wasn't often, a few times a year, but they could talk again, after his anger as a teenager and early on in college, but they'd never be father and son, not again.

They hadn't really been that to start. It didn't mean that Jonathan didn't adore his little brother. Connor was almost ten and could talk his ear off all day (and often did) about archery. In a bit of solidarity, Jonathan had even bought a bow and practiced with his pseudo-sibling at least once a month. He broke almost as many bow strings as he didn't, but his aim was, of course, inhumanly exact. Jonathan was never meant to be the next Green Arrow but one day, maybe, Connor could be the type of son he'd never been able to be.

Still, his parents were so cute together, in that total old people way that he couldn't help smirk at them. God, they were so that couple who even finished each other sentences, and hung all over each other but didn't realize they'd been holding hands. It was sort of pathetically adorable.

They were like that now, stepping in rhythm together and, frankly, after thirty-four years and more apocalypses than even aliens could count, why wouldn't they be?

He offered a small smile but kept wringing his hands. It was that or accidentally pop open a pillow in his anxiety. His mom noticed his attitude first. Of course she would. Had you met Chloe Sullivan, Ace reporter _and_ Kryptonian-whisperer?

"_A stor_, what's wrong?"

"Uh, it's not wrong, exactly."

His dad frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Is it Lex Luthor? Or maybe it's an alien thing. Brainiac again?"

"No...I, well, it's a girl."

"You're upset because of one?" Mom asked.

He rolled his eyes, "Great Mom give me credit."

"Then we're confused," his father said and his voice was still doing that booming Superman thing. "What's wrong."

"I asked Rebecca home for Christmas."

"The girl from _The Washington Post?" _his mom prodded.

"We've been dating about a year. I wanted to introduce her sooner but I also wanted to be sure that I...look I know she's the only girl I've seriously dated. There was a girl in the Titans for a bit but, and I know you'll think I'm nuts, but Rebecca feels like the one." Sighing, he pulled at the velvet box and opened it for both of them.

A ring.

A ring with a teeny tiny diamond that he'd eaten Ramen for eight months to afford, one nowhere near the size of the one his father had given to him out of sheer idiocy at his first birthday. He could make anything he wanted like that, at least when it came to compressing coal. It wasn't the same as earning it. What he loved about Rebecca was that she couldn't be bought.

"I want to ask her to marry me."

His dad gave his mom that look, that glance they used as short hand to communicate without saying a damn word. It was his mother that took the lead:

"Does she know what you are? Who you moonlight for?"

"That I'm in the League? Or that I'm part alien? Not yet, but I thought bringing her hear could break that barrier for all of us. I trust her. If I didn't, I wouldn't have done this, but I thought maybe introducing her to you guys could be a barometer. I...if she balks on just that, we'll just tell her it's a Smallville white blood cell count/meteor shower thing. But I need to just see."

His dad nodded and set a hand on his shoulder. "Of course, is there something she'd like?"

"Hopefully she's in the mood to marry into superheroes," Jonathan joked, his throat suddenly dry. "It's a lot to handle."

"Then I'll take care of the set up, _a stor_, your father's not necessarily gifted all the time at proposals."

"I thought I did fine with Lois and hey!" his father said, looking at his watch. "Let me start dinner."

Jonathan snickered. He'd heard about Lana both times, including the one he didn't get to deliver to steal her, pregnant no less, from another guy. His to Mom hadn't been awful, just poorly timed. He'd had the ring for a week and was planning something on the DP roof by the globe but instead opted to blurt it out with a Yellow Lantern Corp invasion. It was sincere but his mother hadn't been thrilled with a "Oh God, we might die" style proposal.

He'd heard Cousin Lois got a shower of white rose petals.

God, his dad was an impulsive moron sometimes.

"Mom, I appreciate it," he said, still clinging to his own hands. "What if she says no? If I'm too weird?"

She sighed and her chin wobbled a little. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet a human would have had trouble making her words out. "Then you'll find a girl perfectly weird for you and you father and I will be here to help you do that."

"Rebecca, look," he said, smiling as she hopped out of her car. "I should have...I didn't quite know how to prep you for things before you left from the Metropolis airport."

She frowned and pushed her auburn hair behind her ears. "I'm confused."

"Look, there's a reason you haven't met my parents before, and it's not because they're mean or hate my girlfriends usually. They've kept up on some of our bylines. Mom says 'she's not without talent.' That's high praise from a DP junior editor."

Rebecca chuckled. "Well if I'm 'not without talent,' then this is gonna be a breeze."

He positioned himself in front of her, making sure he was still in front of their front door. She needed to hear it before she saw, that much he understood. "You know about the meteor shower, right? What they say about the 'Smallville Specials' who were changed by it."

She frowned and quirked her head at him. "You mean the mutants."

"Yeah, the ones Grandma and Senator Ross worked so hard to pass bills for over the years. I...Mom and Dad have powers because of the shower." That wasn't completely untrue. His dad on Krypton wouldn't have anything, not under a red sun. So falling here in the shower was his start to being "gifted."

Yeah, he hated a life where he had to abuse logic to stay sane too.

"Do you?" she asked and he couldn't read her expression and just once wanted a useful damn power.

"I have a few and we can talk all about that after presents and dinner. What it means, what I can do, but I wanted to tell you now because we don't age."

She blinked and he wondered if he'd accidentally started speaking Kryptonian. "Huh?"

Leaning against the door, Jonathan took deep breaths and forced his anxiety back. It didn't matter that he had, already the adrenaline rush from all of this was causing him to glow a dusty rose like his mom did when she warmed up to heal. Rebecca gasped but didn't shrink back or scream, just frowned back at him.

"Wow, you're...so you make light?"

He laughed but it came out strained and shrill. "I heal myself. I can't do others, but if I get really nervous...uh, it's like a light show. I can't help the glow goes with it or that when I'm anxious it gets more intense." As if to emphasize his point, he went from reddish to bright gold all over. "It's just, I know I'm weird but I'm still me. The Jonathan Kent you met on a lead or who eats Chinese food late at night stuck on a story is me too. I just couldn't say everything first off cause it wasn't all my secret to tell."

She nodded and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Alright."

He hated having to shake his head and shove his hands in his jean pockets when she wanted to take his hand. "I can't."

"Is the glow bad?"

"It's for show, I guess a weird hangover from Mom. She heals everyone, is way better at it than I am. I just...Dad's pretty strong so if I'm this nervous...I don't want to bruise you." Or snap bone to powder but that was for after dinner if his parents thought she could be trusted. If not, well, they'd face that too.

"Oh."

He leaned down and kissed her long and lingering, infinitely glad she still accepted his affection as she always had. Dear God, thank you. "I just...if my parents look like college kids, well, don't say I didn't warn you."

"What?"

"Um, well you might have a wrinkle or two more than Mom by now. It's just...we...well, I'm kind of a freak, okay? I know that and most days I'm okay with who I am, but I know I'm not normal and my family's not. I...if you don't want to do presents and dinner, then I'll understand."

His glow died right there and he felt like a fucking mood ring.

Rebecca heartened him by kissing him again and stroking his cheek. "I'd go anywhere for you. Hell, pick a planet or Atlantis or another dimension. I love you, Jonathan."

He laughed and opened the door. "Don't make wishes you can't back up, because sometimes things aren't just figures of speech. At least not with us."

"I don't understand."

He nodded and beamed as his parents came down the hall to greet them. "You don't now but I hope you will soon. I...Merry Christmas, Becky."

She frowned a bit at his mother and father, probably fighting the cognitive dissonance, but then kissed him one last time before the onslaught. "Merry Christmas, Jonathan. The first of many, right?"

She had no idea.


End file.
